


Never Leave

by Houseofmalfoy



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe, Black Family-centric (Harry Potter), Cousin Incest, F/M, First War with Voldemort, Good Narcissa Black Malfoy, Minor Character Death, POV Sirius Black
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-13
Updated: 2020-06-13
Packaged: 2021-03-03 22:29:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 996
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24703087
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Houseofmalfoy/pseuds/Houseofmalfoy
Summary: Sirius comes home after an argument to be told worse news than he'd been expecting.AU in which Narcissa, somewhere before marrying Lucius, ran away from the Black family as well. She and Sirius are living somewhere in muggle London in a rather... tumultuous and not all that healthy relationship.
Relationships: Sirius Black/Narcissa Black Malfoy
Comments: 18
Kudos: 27
Collections: Caught In Your Spell Comp - Dumbledore's Armada





	Never Leave

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the Caught in Your Spell Flash comp hosted on the Dumbledore's Armada discord. My prompt was "Orchideous", a spell that conjures flowers out of the caster's wand.

He’d stormed out last night, in the heat of their umpteenth argument that week, and he’d stayed out all night. It was now past noon the following day and he’d only just made his way back home. 

Sirius didn’t feel guilty about that, nor did he think Narcissa had missed his presence. It was how they worked; or how they didn’t work, maybe.

It went like this constantly: they’d be fine for a few days that would be filled with laughter, introducing Narcissa to muggle culture, and loads of sex; then they’d be at each other’s throats over something unimportant, and for an unknown amount of time their flat would be filled with screams, glasses shattering against walls, insults that hit too close to home, and loads of sex. 

Sirius thought there were worse things in the world to have an abundance of; their friends thought they were destroying each other in their stubborn insistence that they were doing fine together. 

They were far from perfect, but Sirius thought they were doing pretty alright; everything considered. He blamed their problems on the toll war was taking on them: it was easier to attribute everything that was wrong between them on the state of fear they all lived in instead of the fact that maybe their friends were right. 

“ _ Orchideous _ ”, he muttered, producing a bouquet of flowers of which he didn’t know the name. He didn’t particularly care about it; Sirius didn’t think he had anything to apologise for after last night, but he guessed appeasing Cissa couldn’t hurt him. 

When he entered their flat, Narcissa was seated on the sofa holding a wineglass so tightly that her knuckles were white; looking as though she’d been crying only moments earlier.  _ Fuck _ .

Sirius wasn’t sure if she’d been more upset last night than he’d realised — wouldn’t be the first time either of them had made that mistake — or if something else had happened, but when he hurried towards her he wasn’t angry anymore.

They often worked like that. They’d come to blows in loud and explosive arguments, but there’d always be a moment where it was too much or too far and the mood changed. 

Sometimes the change of mood meant sex, and Sirius didn’t deny that he thoroughly enjoyed the way they shagged when still so angry with each other; but today it meant he was beside her immediately, not having changed out of his clothes that smelled of last night’s whiskey. 

Narcissa, pallid and trembling when she put her glass down and turned to him, muttered a quiet “where’ve you been?” that he’d taken it as an accusation if she hadn’t followed it up immediately with “has anyone talked to you?”

Sirius shook his head, worried now, his heart pounding in his chest immediately because whatever she was about to tell him couldn’t be good. Mentally, he went over the list of people he’d seen last, who’d had Order missions planned yesterday, who he hadn’t heard from lately, but the war moved to quickly for him to have any guesses. 

He swallowed. “No one… Got a hotel for the night; Cissa — ” Sirius paused, not wanting to know the answer to his question. “Who died?”

“Marlene,” Narcissa whispered, her voice breaking. “Marls, and the rest of the family with her. Dorcas was just here, looking for you, and —”

She continued talking as she sometimes did when she was overwhelmed, whispering hurried explanations of the unbearable grief Dorky had felt over her girlfriend and their worry for Sirius and whatever else that he stopped trying to pay attention for because it was too much; it was too much, too painful, too sudden, too Marlene. 

_ Marlene _ . 

Marly, with her dark-blonde curls that always stood every which way and her infectious laughter that brightened even the darkest days of war among their friends. Marly, who’d once taken on three death eaters at once and came out victorious; who’d been his first kiss over glasses of fire whiskey in the Gryffindor common room and who’d gone with him to get his first tattoo at a questionable muggle parlour and had ended up getting one herself too. 

_ His Marlene. _

_ Dead. _

Sirius shuddered as a painful sob forced its way up his throat, bent over when he felt the disbelief and the grief in his chest and before he knew it Narcissa’s arms wrapped around him tightly and he folded into her, all of a sudden nothing but grateful she was here and desperate to keep her there. 

The stupid fucking flowers he’d conjured earlier fell to the ground and Sirius loved that Cissa pretended not to notice them, loved that she held him close to her and said nothing until he spoke up himself, no idea if it’d been ten seconds or a few hours. What the fuck did it matter if Marlene hadn’t been alive during them?

Sirius didn’t look at her, didn’t move away from their slightly uncomfortable position on the couch, but he didn’t need to for Narcissa to hear and understand the desperation in his voice. “Never fucking leave me, Cissa,” he choked, and the grip her fingers had on his hair tightened considerably in a silent promise. “I don’t care if we’re fucked up, if we’re never gonna work out for real. Leave for a few days, I don’t care, but never  _ leave _ . I can’t lose you.”

In a way he guessed their friends were right, they had enough problems to bring any therapist to tears should they ever try but if there was one thing Narcissa provided him with it was a sense of fucked up stability in all their chaos and unpredictability. Sirius couldn’t imagine living without that just as badly as he couldn’t handle the idea of going on without Marly. 

Narcissa kissed the top of his head and he continued to sob when she promised him “never; absolutely  _ never _ . I’m right here, through everything; never going to leave.”

That had to be enough.


End file.
